K9 Dog Piper Of Cherry Capital Airport, Michigan Dies Of Cancer

Piper, the famous K-9 at the Cherry Capital Airport in Michigan, died Wednesday after a year-long battle with prostate cancer.

His handler Brian Edwards said in his social media posts that Piper, who helped maintain wildlife control at the airport by shooing away ducks, geese, owls, foxes and other creatures, died in his arms Wednesday night.

“He fought valiantly, and we did everything we could, but sometimes life just has to take its course. Today, Piper enjoyed a pain-free day, filled with love from family and friends, mostly his fellow airport employees. He played soccer, got some much deserved butt scratches and yes, he chased away one last snowy owl as he sailed into the night. . As I hope was plainly evident, we are grateful. Grateful to have done what we loved for three years and had a whole hell of a lot of fun doing it,” Edwards said about the deceased Border Collie in the posts.

According to Fox 11, Piper was adopted by Edwards around 2012. Edwards told ABC News in 2016 that Piper was constantly outside and “doing a lot of obstacle racing a couple of years ago.”

Edwards knew that other airports had trained dogs and “decided to go for it. I thought, he has the aptitude to do this.” Piper began working at the airport in January 2015. His official title, according to MLive Michigan, was “Wild Life Control Animal."

Edwards said about training Piper that it “took a lot of work to get it to" a point where Piper could feel used to looking at airplanes as it was “not something that is natural for a dog. We train for the worst possible scenario, knowing we’re going to perform our best."

“Piper and I are a unique thing going on,” Edwards said. At other airports where dogs maintain wildlife control, the owners of the dogs do not work at the airport. He also told ABC that it was rare to have dogs help with airport control and that the “FAA doesn’t keep statistics on dogs in use at airports.”

The dog soon became a star on social media, with almost 94 thousand followers at the time of his death.

Piper had his own uniform for work, a day harness that protected him, and a night time one that lit up, so that Edward would not lose sight of him. He also wore a signature pair of protective dog goggles.

According to MLive, Edwards in July 2016 painted a pair of those goggles yellow, in honor of a visit from the United States Navy Blue Angels to the airport; he also painted the number 6 on the eyegear to honor Captain Jeff "Kooch" Kuss, pilot number #6, who was tragically killed during a training session just a few weeks before.

Piper wore the goggles during the team's visit and a picture of him was put up on Instagram.

When his followers — 58,000 at the time — saw the Rex Specs goggles, requests for it skyrocketed. The company decided to partner with Piper, and created a special version of the yellow goggles, and made them available to the public. They also donated 10 percent of the proceeds from the first one hundred goggle sold directly to Edward.

On Wednesday, Edward said in his post that the flag that Piper was wrapped in flew at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City and was taken down and presented to him. “As we leave you tonight, know that Piper is in a better place,” he said.